What's worse? Walmart or eBay direct from China?

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Seeing the threads and mentions of Harbor Freight, Walmart and made in China, I was wondering which is the lesser evil.

Walmart which sells lots of Made in China products but employs American workers.

Or buying direct from Chinese eBay sellers, cutting out Walmart, and employing USPS workers.
 
I always feel like I need a shower after shopping at Walmart. It seems to me like our local store just keeps going down hill. Long checkout lines and employees who look like they are hung over and just waiting for quitting time.And most of them are dressed worse than the shoppers. Unshaven, shirt hanging out, moving in slow motion and no interest in what they are doing. One big collection of derelicts. And yet there to greet us is an older woman who looks neat and trim and interested in doing a good job. Too bad Walmart can't find about twenty five more just like her.
 
Yeah, you'd have to define "lesser evil" ...

USPS is a money losing proposition whether the Chinese are involved or not and WalMart pays subsistence wages, often undercuts mom and pop businesses, and does so because of their business model that Chinese-made products help support. It might be a little more involved that A versus B.
 
Truth be told most people talk big and their actions do not correlate with their mouth. When you go buy a hammer and the American one costs 3x as much most of the USA lovers buy the lousy stuff and call it a day. Americans buy way too much and are addicted to cheap products.

I try to buy American and often you can't. Notice you hardly ever see anything here Made in Canada. I'd like to buy North American anyway.

I need a new lathe and I was going to buy a Standard Modern made in Canada and it was made here for a few months. Well its nearly $20K now for a small manual and since its been moved around lately and sold a few times who knows how good they are these days. A top of the line Taiwan machine is $9500.

In the end try to support your neighbors as its a smart and selfish thing to do-really.....

But you can't always do that.


Originally Posted By: CharlieBauer
Seeing the threads and mentions of Harbor Freight, Walmart and made in China, I was wondering which is the lesser evil.

Walmart which sells lots of Made in China products but employs American workers.

Or buying direct from Chinese eBay sellers, cutting out Walmart, and employing USPS workers.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You cannot avoid buying products made over seas. It's nearly impossible.
 
Originally Posted By: CharlieBauer
Seeing the threads and mentions of Harbor Freight, Walmart and made in China, I was wondering which is the lesser evil.

Walmart which sells lots of Made in China products but employs American workers.

Or buying direct from Chinese eBay sellers, cutting out Walmart, and employing USPS workers.


Choosing a "lesser evil" is still choosing evil.

While Walmart does employ American workers, the environment is frequently abhorrent: not only do they suffer low wages, no benefits and poor hours, poor management also causes much of the disrespect. There are countless stories about Walmart managers who disrespect their employees; one even told an African-American worker that he'd "like to put a rope around his neck"*. The Walmart corporate culture views its workers as almost sub-human.

Top that off with a store that had its "Made in USA" claims called into question when it was found to be intentionally deceiving consumers, and was forced to remove them from its website. At Walmart there are very few alternatives to the made in China products they sell. At least on Ebay you usually have a choice.

And purchasing direct from China via Ebay? No thanks. I am quite sure I can live without any Ebay "direct from China" goods.

I will concede that unless one lives like Ted Kaczynski it is almost impossible to come across some products that are made in China. However, it's also very easy to avoid them as much as possible. While I'm sure that there are some quality goods that come from China, unless I have no alternative I can't bring myself to financially support a communist country who funds cyber attacks on US companies and US networks, as well as a country that is no friend of free markets, and more interested in ignoring national norms rather than respecting them.

*NY Times article 12/11/14.
 
For the lowest prices shop at a brand new Walmart. They lower the prices a bit more than usual because their goal is getting rid of local competition. Better yet, don't shop at Walmart and support local business.
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
If you get a defect its a lot easier AND FASTER to return it to WM than China.


This was going to be my response. I'd rather be able to get a refund or replacement right away in person if the item was worth more than a few bucks.
 
With Wal-Mart you might get Chinese junk but at least the product claims are accurate. With Chinese eBay sellers there are lots of exaggerations and flat out lies. I have bought junk and Wal-Mart but I have been flat out burned buy Chinese eBayers. I go out of my way to not buy from any foreign ebayers especially Chinese
 
I love Walmart...and besides people from Mexifornia have zero business complaining about anything foreign since it is a sanctuary for millions of illegals. Hypocrites.
 
If the direct from China price is 10-20% of buying it here, it's a no brainer.

I wanted/needed some DDR2 memory. Can't find 4GB sticks here for less than $80-100. Got two sticks direct from China for $20 shipped. It's a gamble I was willing to take because the downside is very small.

Now if we are talking more money for the product, not sure if the gamble is still worth it.

But four sticks of memory for $40 vs $320-$400, I'll give China Mail a shot.
 
This is a bash Wal-Mart thread.

I should clue you in that everyone everywhere seems to be selling stuff made in China. A lot of the junk sold in Lowes and Home Depot that isn't sold in Wal-Mart is made in China.
I'm sure you have a pair of athletic shoes? Do you wear obtainable made in USA New Balance, or something made in China or Asia? Does a cashier at a local mom and pop hardware store make more coin and have better benefits than someone at a Wal-Mart store?
 
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Originally Posted By: javacontour
If the direct from China price is 10-20% of buying it here, it's a no brainer.

I wanted/needed some DDR2 memory. Can't find 4GB sticks here for less than $80-100. Got two sticks direct from China for $20 shipped. It's a gamble I was willing to take because the downside is very small.

Now if we are talking more money for the product, not sure if the gamble is still worth it.

But four sticks of memory for $40 vs $320-$400, I'll give China Mail a shot.

If there is no different between the two, why pay 10 times for the same product (probably they are all made in China anyway) ?

Many products are made in China only, such as smart phones, flat-screen TV, small appliances ...
 
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: javacontour
If the direct from China price is 10-20% of buying it here, it's a no brainer.

I wanted/needed some DDR2 memory. Can't find 4GB sticks here for less than $80-100. Got two sticks direct from China for $20 shipped. It's a gamble I was willing to take because the downside is very small.

Now if we are talking more money for the product, not sure if the gamble is still worth it.

But four sticks of memory for $40 vs $320-$400, I'll give China Mail a shot.

If there is no different between the two, why pay 10 times for the same product (probably they are all made in China anyway) ?

Many products are made in China only, such as smart phones, flat-screen TV, small appliances ...


If there is that much of a price difference, it's counterfeit. You might get lucky and it works great, or it might be total junk.
 
eBay is way worse than Walmart.

At least products sold at Walmart must meet some sort of minimum quality requirements and US law.

eBay. Anybody can sell anything on eBay.

The point about counterfeiting is a good one.

There is also a lot of guys importing Chinese counterfeit products, and reselling them on eBay. Ships from US/Canada, and the products are very close to real.
 
Buying from any B&M retailer is probably the lesser evil.
Better yet, spend a dime more and buy from some local store.
There are still a few out there and if we all ignore them and rush to either some online source or Walmart, they'll soon all be gone.
You'll get no advice at all from fleabay and nobody at Walmart is gonna know anything.
A local retailer will likely have somebody who actually knows something, including the guy who owns the place.
If you want to hold something in your hand and actually try it out, there are an ever smaller number of local places that allow this.
Buy from Walmart or online and these guys will go away, and we'll have no one to thank but ourselves.
 
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